OK, look. I know you’re good at your job. I know work is important to you. I know that in these troubled economic times, it’s important to project an aura of reliability, strength, compentence and dedication. But Jesus Christ!
You, S, are one step away from death, and yet here you are. Sniffling. Coughing. Asking for pain relievers. Eyes bloodshot. Constantly forgetting the answers to questions you’ve asked not once, but three times already. Telling me you’re incapable of working on our joint project because your head is so stuffy and achey you can’t think.
If that’s the case, why on Earth are you here? And furthermore, why do you feel it necessary to come over to my seat, lean in until you’re inches from my face, and stage-whisper about L’s birthday? She’s 10 feet away. She can still hear you. I’m 6 inches away. Not only can I hear you, but I can practically see the lively little viruses darting about in the miasma of your breath.
You, L, missed Monday (wise) but came in yesterday so that you wouldn’t miss your birthday at work. Then you complained about how you wouldn’t be able to go out that night, because you’re sick. And how you shouldn’t be the one to cut the cake we got you, because you’re sick. And could we please bring you some water from the cafeteria so that you don’t have to walk up there, because you’re sick. Well, you’re sick enough to not be in today, so I can damn well see you weren’t well enough to be in yesterday.
All around me, I hear coughing and sniffing and why? Because you fuckers wouldn’t STAY HOME. You HAVE SICK DAYS TO USE. That’s why the company gives them to you-- so that the rest of its employees won’t be exposed to your infection-riddled selves! Stay home!
Where I work, to use sick days, you need to have a doctor’s note. What the fuck’s up with that? Is that the policy at your place of employment, Beadalin?
He/she may not want to go through the trouble of going to the doctor for the flu… it’s just easier to go to work and spread it to everyone else.
Nope, that’s not the policy. We’re all salaried, and the environment is laid-back. If I really wanted to, I could call my boss and tell him I plan to stay home, eat bon-bons, and strum a banjo all day long, and that would be OK (although filed under “Personal Days” rather than “Sick Days”). They’re coming in because they think it’s their duty, and they’re taking the whole damn department with 'em.
My husband, as part of his desktop support duties, had to go into a woman’s cube yesterday. He walks in and she’s practically barfing up a lung. He sits in her chair, she’s hovering over his shoulder, hacking and wheezing in his ear. Not once did he see her cover her mouth. But he did see her wipe her nose with the back of her hand at least once.
“Man, whatever you got, you got it good.” says he.
Speaking as an uninsured person who discovered yesterday that the cold I though I had kicked last week has now progressed to bronchitis and is typing this from work, I’d like to take this opportunity to ask my coworkers to pay for my sick days out of their own pockets if they’re so concerned about catching my diseases. Better yet, help me pressure administration to give part timers some benefits.
I can’t make up the days I call in, doctor’s note (Doctor? What’s that?) or not, and I can’t afford to miss a day. So I kindly invite the coworkers who have been whining about how I shouldn’t be here to go fuck themselves. You’ve got the luxury of such things as vacation time, sick time, personal time, and free health insurance, so I don’t particularly care if I give you the fucking Ebola virus. I’ll still come in with germ-laden blood dripping form my eyeballs and nostrils.
This isn’t directed at *Beadalin… more of an addendum than a rebuttal. That bitch in the OP would have probably screwed me double.
As some sort of wierd ass paradox I get shit all vacation time at work. However I get vacation time up the ass (16 hrs a month and thats as a new employee).
However, I’ve gotta point out that by the time symptoms appear in the VAST majority of cases you are NO LONGER INFECTUOUS.
A lot of the cold symptoms are from aggrigate cellular damage from a combination of pathogen and immune response.
Anyhoo, yeah they sound disgusting and produce things that look as if they belong in the toilet of this swampthing. But they usually aren’t dangerous. Its in the first day or two, when the symptoms are mild that they are at their most dangerous.
If I’m wrong about this, please share… Immunology course was more than 2 years ago.
Just pointing out to CRorex that a popular spreading mechanism of numerous virus’ is that of expelling bodily products. i.e sneezing. This allows said virus to travel through the air, hopefully (for it) arriving on an unaffected organism where it can settle in and make a new home.
And much as I hate being around sick people, and agree with the sentiments expressed in the OP, I really feel for those that can’t afford to have the day off, because of various reasons. I have been in this situation before, and believe me, it sucks ! Those people would love to have the luxury of staying home and getting better.
Sympathies to the OP, but if I don’t come in, not only do I not get paid, I get a whole bunch of people hopping around like flatulent chickens screeching about how I’ll never work for them again. And since my work schedule tends to be a lot of nothing punctuated by $500-1000 days, I must come when called, germs be damned.
And as a side bar to the OP, when your kids are sick, please keep them home!
Don’t tell me Junior was up all night throwing up, but that he’s ‘all better’ now. No, he isn’t. Keep him home.
Don’t send little Sissy to school with that thick yellow snot pouring out of her nose. She needs to go to the doctor.
Don’t tell me little Myron had diarrhea all night and to call you if it starts up again, and that there’s a change of pants in his backpack. You keep him home and strapped to the toilet.
Lucky you, not all companies give sick days. At my company, all you get is “PTO” which euphamistically stands for “paid time off.” When I started, I had approximately 8 days’ worth. This was to be used for all vacation and sick day purposes. So, I suppose if I wanted to take a vacation, I had better not get sick the rest of the benefits year, eh?
BTW, I work at a high tech company in San Diego. I’ve never understood their PTO policies…
Uh, can you take time off without pay? If I was sick, I wouldn’t really care if I wasn’t getting paid or not…my health is more important, and so is that of my coworkers.
Viruses don’t possess any higher functions, they can’t “hopefully (for it)” do anything. They react like a chemical compound.
I’m assuming this is some bizzare rebuttal to my statement. If I’m understanding correctly, you pointed this out to say since viruses are spread via bodily fluids sneezing is a mechanism: thus anyone sneezing is spreading virus.
I was trying to explain is that a) you are ‘sick’ aka infected before you start sneezing, discharging gooey nastiness.
Its faily simple, if explained properly. You get infected, virus comes into your body, it finds the target cells and enters them. Viruses are quite specific about what sort of cells they can attack. This has to do with glyco-protein receptors a subject a bio-chemsit is better equiped to explain.
Ok Virus goes in, you are now sick. What happens now?
The Virus begins to replicate, and there is a lag period. This lag period is when there is no antigen present outside of the infected cells. Antigen is protein that will stilulate an immune repsonse. Immune cells can identify any foreign proteins in your body, Viruses are made of proteins. And while the virus is replicating infected cells express various viral proteins. This antigens stimulate the immune response to a) trap and ‘inactivate’ the pathogen (virus) and b) since many viruses incorperate their DNA into the host DNA (if you need an explanation here, you shouldn’t have responded). Therefor the host cell must be destroyed to inhibit further viral replication. More cells will be killed by immune response than will be killed by escaping virus. This isn’t always the case, but when more cells are killed by escaping virus I woulnd’t worry, you are already dead or will be in days.
What I’m trying to get at, someone sneezes. Virus from that sneeze enters your body. A) the virus takes time to replicate for it to develope into sickness. B) The virus that entered into your body was probably quite load viral load wise, when typically viruses are measure in thousands of copies per mL of blood. Because of A & B you will be sick for quite a while before you develop symptoms. Most viral infections take 2 weeks after infection to be cleared. I’ve had nasty chest infections where I felt terrible for a month or two. That is more than enough time for a MASSIVE immune response, this immune response killed a lot of cells in my lungs causing wheezing and coughing up lots of gooey nastiness.
And as I said before, by the time you get really nasty the virus is under control, antibodies are in mucus memberains trapping the virus and preventing its spread. Infected cells are being destroyed. Hence gooey nastyness and coughing.
I agree with both you and the OP. However I’m trying share with everyone that despite sounding like death warmed over those sick people aren’t much of a danger to you.
Its disgusting, and repulsive. And ya know, you DON"T NEED TO PUT UP WITH IT.
All you need to be is a little bit assertive.
Just TELL the damn person that what they are doing is disgusting and that you don’t want to be sick. The only reason why you have to put up with someone being disgustingly sick in your face is because you let them. Assertive doesn’t mean rude.
GRRR
My apologies if this isn’t that coherent, I’m tired and my head is throbbing from explain to my grandmother that she isn’t important enough to get anthrax.
Osama Bin Laden, “I shal make America Tremble! I will infect your elderly with Anthax.”
If you believe this, reinsert your head up your rectum. The real world is much scarier.
But what about the employer who gives you six sick days a year, then has a stinking fit when you try to take one and threatens to fire you because you dared to be ill? My husband has been sick with bronchitis for two weeks now, yet he has been going to work every day because his supervisor told him “I don’t care how sick you think you are, don’t you dare call in sick or you can look for another job.” My husband started working there six months ago and has only taken one day off of work His boss routinely comes in to work even with bad colds, so he thinks that if he can still manage to work while being sick, then so can everybody else in the office.
Shadowfox, those type of employers really get on my nerves. I quit my job because my boss tried to make me feel guilty(WTF?) for getting sick and taking an unpaid leave of absence for a tonsillectomy. I decided I didn’t want to work in that kind of environment any more. So, now I’m unemployed. If I were in your husband’s shoes, I would probably call the employer’s bluff…after all, he does have sick days left. Hopefully his boss wouldn’t be enough of a jerk to actually go through with threat, but then you might be able to sue him? Unfortunately, my boss was the same way–the day after he had surgery on his stomach, he was back at work; and whenever he got a bad cold he was there, coughing and breathing on me. He expected every one else to behave the same way. I told him politely that I have different values than he does, and I actually respect my coworkers enough not to pass on colds and flu (apparently I was the only one). It really sucks when you have to decide between your health and your job.
Which is one way the virus particles are passed on to another person
I also, react like a chemical compound at certain levels. I was not saying that the virus hopes to land on an organism, I was expressing that it is better for the virus from an objective point of view to land on an organism it is able to infect, rather than on a sterile piece of bench, for example.
Nothing bizarre about it. I’m stating that anybody sneezing is capable of spreading the virus. I am well aware that they were also capable of spreading this virus before they showed obvious symptoms i.e sneezing.
I am not going to quote your explanation of virus activity in an organism. If anyone would like to refer to it, please see two posts above.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but this is your argument, as I see it. Sneezing people are not going to infect you, it’s just gooey nastyness.
But, you also say the following :
You seem to be saying at one point that sneezing people are not going to infect you, and then show us exactly how they will infect us.
I am not trying to attack you, but these are your words. If you were not trying to say that sneezing people were all non - infectious, please rephrase your original post, so I can understand what you are getting at.
The point I was trying to make in my post was that these people can be infectious when they are sneezing. I did not mean to imply that this was the only time such people were infectious.
Sorry if this comes across as an attack, it’s not meant to be. Your language was quite aggressive as you made your point, and I hope I have only matched it, not exceeded it. My intentions are polite, if that makes a difference
I didn’t think your post was an attack. And I wasn’t trying to have my rebuttal be an attack. You have my apologies.
Its just been a long day doing something very nasty and very dangerous. Kinda running a short fuse today.
That is no excuse however.
Okkay,
I was trying to, very badly to point out that not all sneezing is passing germs.
…
At least, when you are visibly sick you are not passing the germs from what caused your disease.
Grr, this keeps getting more complecated. AND THAT is what is pissing me off. I should be able to figure out a way to express this clearly and to the point without having to type page after page of text.
Ok, any given time you have a number of different pathogens waging a war of attrition in your body. When one of them reaches a certain point it breaks out in an infection. Spreading a virus from a host where this virus is currently pathogenic is bad, since these viruses have already mutated to avoid some immune responses.
Ok, now lets start on the quotes…
quote 1 and 2.
Viruses do like to be expelled anyway humanly possible! yay we agree. The exact method depends on the virus and its survivability in various condidions, many of which I neglected to study. Thats what reference books are for… which i sold so I could buy books for next term.
quote 3, nitpicky little thing that a good friend’s gf jumped all over my ass for a 4 hour dinner and ruined an evening. It was about attributing human behavior to animals… HOW THE HELL ELSE ARE YOU GONNA CLASSIFY THEIR BEHAVIOR!?!
quote 4, the first 4 times I read your post to which that is a response to I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what the hell you were talking about. It seemed to me being a restatement of what I said about viruses being passed by various bits of expelled nastyness.
Next:
This is the problem… My arguement is: While disgusting, those hacking sputum spewing piles of social rejects, are probably not going to pass on their SPEICIFIC array of viral subtypes that made them in their current gooey state.
I wasn’t trying to attack you. My intention in my post was trying to reassure the previous posters someting I wasn’t aware of until after a number of virology/immunology and related courses. Then I couldn’t figure out what you were initially trying to say. So I attempted to restate in a more coherent manner what I was saying… Which we can all see where that went.
Basically, as i said before, those sick people aren’t spreading quite as much viral nastyness as they seem.
My apologies if my reply was inappropriately hostile.
Have fun.
PS, Ignore the spelling and if there are any Immunology or Virology PhDs who can jump in, please do.
Big breath… (will be doing my PhD in a year, {touch wood} does that count ?)
O.K
I think we both tried to see what the other was saying, and ended up confusing each other !
Apologies all around
I now understand that you are saying that the sick people aren’t HIGHLY infectious. Most laymen probably see all that lovely phlegm, and think that just by being in the same room as it, they will now be horribly sick for months to come. I understand that you were trying to allay their fears. Good job ! : pats CRorex on the back :
I thought you were trying to say they couldn’t infect others at all. Period. That’s what I took issue to.
No need for us to argue the point any longer, since we both agree with each other! How about you and me go grab a cuppa and talk about sputum and phlegm. hehehe
Hey join the club. I’m taking a year off since I was tired of being poor (cough bad grades). I’m shooting for the PhD in Virology, you?
Btw: replace coffee with several rounds of margaritas or rummy goodness and count me in… If you’ve read some of my other posts I need depressants not stimulants.
Good luck on the grad school hunt
The one thing I have to say about getting a PhD in Virology is, the only sick people I’ll ever have to deal with is myself. Hrrm refering to self as a plural. I can’t imagine being a doctor, I mean all of those people comming in are SICK! I HATE being sick.
: pats CRorex on the back :